A Death In The Borgia Family: June 14, 1497

In Rome, a secret consistory was held where the pope made his son Juan of Aragon into the Duke of Gandia and gave him investiture of a new principality. The Duchy of Benevento, Terracina and Pontecorvo was created and which included the 'lands all about' in the region to the north and east of Naples. This present which only gained insistent resistance from Cardinal Piccolomini, was soon and rather easily granted by the twenty-six cardinals that Johann Burchard said were present for the vote that day on June 7, 1497. Two days later, in another secret meeting, the pope's other son, already a Cardinal, Cesare Borgia was officially made legate to the pope and given the task of placing a crown on Don Federigo, the Prince of Altamura, as the new King of Naples.

Through the day of June 15, Rodrigo grew increasingly worried and then lost all hope when Juan had not returned from one last night out in Rome before leaving to take up his new lands. He had gone and eaten dinner with his brother and his mother Donna Vanozza the night before on the 14th, according to Burchard. He also says a masked man had accompanied them there and then left with the Duke when the brothers parted ways after the dinner, with an understanding they would travel south together next day. This did not transpire.

When Juan did not show up in the morning of the fifteenth word was sent out to go collect him and bring him back to the Vatican. Reports kept coming back that the young duke could not be found. Eventually, 'after the hour of Vespers, or a little before', his body was found fully clothed in the Tiber River with his purse still attached to him and with 30 ducats still in it. He had nine stab wounds all over his body. He was placed in a boat which was sent to Castel San'Angelo. There, Burchard's colleague Don Bernardino Gutteri, quickly stripped, washed and clothed the body in military costume. Then it was taken about six o'clock, 'by members of his own household' to the Church of Santa Maria del Popolo. Burchard says about one hundred and twenty torch bearers led the procession along with palace ecclesiastics, chamberlains, shield bearers, 'marching slowly and in great disorder'.

Pope Alexander VI, the young Duke's father shut himself into his inner rooms for days and wailed and wept. The mystery over who had done this would deepen and gain many different motives, conspirators, and troubling theories. At first the pope wanted a thorough investigation but his ardor for evidence cooled as time went on. For many this pointed the finger at the Duke's brother Cesare Borgia, but the truth has never been definitively discovered.

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pp. 143-47, Johann Burchard: At The Court of the Borgia translated for english, with introduction by Geoffrey Parker, The Folio Society, Ltd, 1963